by Howard Campbell
[KINGSTON, Jamaica] – Producer Winston “Niney” Holness is leaving the release date for his first album in over 40 years in the hands of God. Scheduled to be out this year, those plans were shelved due to the Coronavirus.
“Mi naah do nuthin until di Father sey yes. Mi cyaan waste money an’ don’t know what going on,” he said.
Holness, who is in his late 60s, began work on the album last year in Jamaica with musicians such as drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Flabba Holt.
Yet titled, he said it will have 14 songs including covers of Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds and Prince Buster’s Blackhead Chineyman.
The set is a mix of Ska, boogie woogie, blues and roots-reggae.
“Wi try please everybody. Wi mek music fi everybody,” Holness stated, adding that he is shopping the project to record companies.
Holness was actually born George Boswell in St. James, a rural parish on Jamaica’s north coast. Moving to Kingston in the early 1960s, he got involved in the music business working with producers Joe Gibbs, Lee “Scratch” Perry and Bunny Lee.
He launched his career as a producer in the early 1970s but first hit the big time as a singer with Blood And Fire, a song that entered the British national chart in 1971.
Holness is best known as producer of classic reggae songs like Silver Words by Ken Boothe, Cassandra and Westbound Train by Dennis Brown and Gregory Isaacs’ Slavemaster.
Those songs were done for his Observer label.
He decided to make a comeback as an artist after failing to unearth fresh talent at his Observer Soundbox recording studio in Kingston.
